Look at me, borrowing people’s work from the forums and using it as blog material! Well, I really liked this poem that scebboalIwIw on the boards sent me, so I’m sharing.

Fred, he’s random and funny…
And JKR, even though he has no money…
Made Fred, but why?
To make us feel better when we just want to cry
To spread joy around the world
To to cheer up all the boys and girls…
We have war and death
But take a deep breath…
Remember why JKR made Fred…
To stop us from worrying about when we’ll be dead…
Christmas isn’t about gifts…
It’s about love and peace and maybe a kiss…
A kiss of love…
Spread happiness around the world.

I think it sums up what I do nicely. So go watch some Fred cartoons and smile!

Today I wrote a new Fred cartoon that I’d like to produce over the next few weeks. It’s very short, but (I think) pretty darn funny. The title… Should I reveal the title? Hmmm… I could, but then maybe I could save it for next week so people come back to the blog. Well, if you come back and read the blog anyway, I’ll give away the title today: The Return of Mr. D. Wonder where he went for so long? Well in the next Fred short you’ll find out. It may take a bit though, because I have to track down Mr. D and BDDB to do some voice recording first!

Not much else, except one nugget of wisdom: If you ever get into a car accident and it’s your fault, don’t lie and make up a story about how the other person crashed into you. It really sucks for the other person who was not at fault. Just take responsibility and learn from it.

Have a great weekend!

It’s been a long time in the making, and now the official FredtheMonkey.com Podcast is finally live!

Get your very own copy (and for FREE no less!) by visiting the front page at FredtheMonkey.com right this very second. No, not in 5 minutes. Not in 30 seconds. Not even right after you finish reading this blog entry. RIGHT NOW! (Or rather, a few seconds ago when you should have already been getting it.)

That’s probably why I’ve never enjoyed writing drafts before final versions. After I create something, I just don’t want to do it all again. If a file is accidentally deleted, I rarely go back to re-create everything that was in it. I bring this up because I did a background for a Fred cartoon in a different style than normal, and it turned out great but not as good as if I had done it another way. That means I now have to go redo the whole darn thing, just because I missed one little setting the first time. Sigh. Well I guess I better get to it. The only thing is, I have to finish that Podcast and the new Cubetoons comic, so I feel like I should work on those first.

I’m feeling pretty groggy today, which is odd because I actually slept halfway decently last night. I must not have gotten enough sleep. I was back in not-my-own-bed, and that threw me off again. Ah well, eventually I’ll not be tired. Maybe.

Monday Night Football last night was one of the worst games ever. Apparently the field they were playing on had a new layer of sod put over it and then it rained there, so they basically played on a swamp. They probably should have canceled the game. I honestly feel so bad for the Dolphins, because they have never won a game this entire year. Well maybe next week…

Also thoughts and prayers go out to the family of the Redskin’s player who was shot and killed last weekend. It’s a terrible thing, and hopefully they’ll catch the robber who did it. Of course, thousands of people are shot every day, and it’s something that we (as a species) should really try to fix. These things don’t need to happen.

I’m happy to say that this afternoon I’ll be going back to work! Hooray! How I’ve missed work. I’m sure in a week I’ll be singing a different tune, but now I feel energized and ready to go! Which is a very good thing, because several weeks ago I wasn’t feeling very enthusiastic, to be honest. Despite being extremely difficult, the past three weeks have really helped me focus.

I actually got to sleep in my own bed last night, which was so, so wonderful. I didn’t realize how much I missed being in my own house. So I guess all in all, this was a really good experience for me, because I appreciate a lot of things I already had much more.

Over on the Fred/Cubetoons message boards (have you signed up to chat?) user hitokage sent me a link to a portrait he did. It’s me!Or, maybe it would be if I was an extremely pretty boy… I’m not so much. But I thought I’d share anyway, because it made me smile.

I have this problem where I come up with too many ideas and don’t have the time or resources to see them all through. It really sucks, to be honest, because you come up with some awesome plan and then 10 minutes later you need to choose between it and another spark of inspiration you just thought up. In today’s case, I had some ideas for a second FredtheMonkey.com Podcast, but the first one isn’t even done yet! I can’t start on another before the first one is complete. So off those ideas go into the files, and who knows if they’ll ever get out.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I’ve got my To Do list in front of me. It is very different than my normal T-Day list, because that used to involve setting tables and cleaning for company. Now I am one of the chefs and so those duties are passed down to the slaves- I mean, kids. I won’t miss those responsibilities.

I am, however, a bit concerned about my NEW responsibilities, because I really don’t want to ruin the turkey. Since I’m making several types of turkey dishes (I actually added a fourth to my list today) I know if one is messed up it won’t be a huge deal, but I’d still like them all to turn out well. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.

I have also come to terms with the fact that the Fred game I’ve been toiling over will not, as I continued to hope, be out any time soon. This is a huge undertaking, and I had to finally accept that it could be even years before something so large would be done. I certainly hope it is NOT years plural, but if that’s what it takes to make the game great, that’s what it will be. This is not just a toss away Flash game that one messes around with for a few minutes and then forgets about. If I’m going to make this Fred game, it’s going to be epic.

We have a new Iron Chef! And he’s a winner! The Food Network had a show to decide who was the next Iron Chef for the show Iron Chef America. One of my favorites on the show ended up winning, and yesterday was his first official battle in Kitchen Stadium. I’m happy to say he won, so a big congrats to him! (Oh, I’m SURE he spends his days surfing the web for blogs by artists to see if they are congratulating him for his TV wins…)

My mother is healing well and can now walk (hobble) on her own with a walker. This is both good and bad. Good because it means my run as nurse will be over soon (probably another week) but bad because I now have to clean up the kitchen after cooking right away, since she can make it in there herself now and complains about the mess. I suppose that’s not so bad after all; I’m happy that I don’t have to wake up at 3AM (and 4:30 AM and 6AM) daily now and help her to the bathroom and back. And of course glad that she’s feeling so much better.

This Thursday is Thanksgiving and I’ll be (for the first time ever) in charge of the turkey. Or really I should say “turkeys” because we usually have two (big family). One would think I would stick to traditional methods of cooking for my first venture into this bird realm, but I say NO!

I will be preparing one turkey a semi-traditional way, using some of the awesome tips I learned last Thanksgiving with my mother-in-law. She glazes the turkey in honey (several times) and flips it while cooking. It was the best turkey I ever had, to be sure. I doubt I’ll come close to the original, but I’m going to try my best.

Then the second turkey I’m planning to disassemble before cooking and try a few different things on. I will be making one part in a Terriyaki glaze with fried rice, and another part in a pot-pie like sauce. Then if I have time (yeah right!) I’m going to prepare some of my finally-perfected Turkey Meatballs (which honestly are more like Turkey Meatloaf Balls, but eee? pah.). I hope the rest of my family enjoys the food and has a great day. I’m quickly becoming heralded as one of the best cooks in my family. (Yay!)

What’s everyone’s plan for Turkey day? Celebrating?

I’ll tell you what, not working for two weeks is really weird. When I took time off to get married, I was still working (except on the honeymoon) trying to get everything in order for the wedding (and the house/move). But now, I’m just sitting around all day not really doing much of anything! It’s very strange. I’m not much enjoying it. I’d rather be making a new cartoon or comic. But I guess that’s to be expected when you love the job you do and it’s more fun than work most of the time.

Anyway, I feel like I don’t have a lot to talk about, but this is the weekend update, so I’m going to make SURE I talk! After all, with another week without other updates, I’m sure everyone wants something to enjoy from Fred and Cubetoons, right? Not just popping off to look at other cartoons and comics, are you? YOU BETTER NOT! (I’m just kidding, that’s fine. Just don’t forget to come back…)

The Office ended last night for who knows how long. So sad… But until the networks start giving the writers a halfway decent deal the strike will continue. I don’t know who to be mad at. Obviously the networks suck for holding out, but at the same time I want to scream “Get back to work and make the shows I love!” to the writers. Sigh, guess it will be reruns for me!

Speaking of Re-runs, I got seasons 1-3 of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman on DVD. Yay! (They were on sale, so it was cheap.) It was my #1 favorite show when I was younger, and I can’t manage to watch an episode now without grinning like an idiot. I guess it isn’t even that great a show, but man do I love it. Dean Cain + Terri Hatcher = best duo ever.

The other thing I’ve been doing a lot is tossing around ideas for that Fred the Monkey game I so often toss around ideas for. With little work on cartoons getting done, this is my output for Fred at the moment, and I have to admit I’m getting a little obsessed about it. So obsessed in fact that I now drive on autopilot where ever I go (not a good idea on busy roads, people! Remember that!) and carry around my notebook of plans for the game so I can write everything I come up with. I can’t tell you how much I’d like to spill the beans and rattle on about everything I’ve thought up, but I won’t. Why? Well because I STILL don’t know if this idea is feasible. To be honest it’s a huge project that would normally take a team of both artists AND programmers, and we only have one of each. So I don’t want to get other people’s hopes up like mine have gotten. And oh how high my hopes are… It would thrill me to be able to produce this game. Yet the wait to see if it can be done continues, and will no doubt continue well into next year. Sigh…

Hopefully that was enough to take up a bit of your time and interest you when you should be doing something much more important than reading the rantings of this blog! Now’s your chance to go out there and do whatever it is you’re supposed to do, because the world is waiting. Time to make it a better place.

Now back to that game idea…

This post seems familiar. I’m sure I wrote one like it one other time when I was sleep deprived and in one of those “moods”. You know the ones, where everything is hilarious and any jokes/cartoons you write will eventually be looked back on like “What was I ON?” because they’re totally not funny later. But now they’re funny. Now they’re funny because I didn’t sleep enough and I just ate a bowl of freaking sugar candy marshmallows. I don’t know what kind of sugar they use for lucky charms but man, that is some good stuff. I could rot my teeth on that all day. Or at least for 10 minutes until I threw up.

Anyway, it may not seem like this post is going anywhere, but I assure you that I’m convinced if I keep writing some nugget of wisdom will come spilling out of me like the gushing jello stuff that they get out of whales. What’s that called? Whale lard or something? Anyway, just like that.

I enjoy rocking chairs but I don’t own one. I’d like to, but the people who make them are greedy sons of biscuits and charge a million dollars. Or a hundred dollars or something. I don’t have a hundred dollars! Where am I supposed to get that kind of money for a rocking chair? A guy has to eat! Eat lucky charms!

I don’t know, I think it’s all one big conspiracy. The government tricks us into using their money so they can… do… something… I’m not sure. I think I’m coming down from my sugar/lack of sleep high. Darn it. This is the less fun part…

Well I am now the owner of Super Mario Galaxy. I even got to play 5 minutes of it at JW’s house after we got back from Best Buy (Toys R Us was all sold out, darn it!). But as for when I’ll actually be able to start my own adventure with the big M, I just don’t know. With the Wii at my house and my nursing job still needed, I’m not going to get to play for a long while still. Sigh… Ah well, eventually. Eventually…

I’d also really like to get back to my computer for a few hours and finish that podcast that’s pretty much 80% done. But that too will have to wait. Maybe this weekend I can pop over there for a few hours and finish it. If I’m quick enough, I could even get a star or two in Galaxy afterwards.

I’ve been waking up to help every hour for the past few nights. I’m exhausted. If I didn’t hate naps, I’d take them. Lots of them. Right now.

In other news, I’m going to get Mario Galaxy tomorrow but can’t play it until who knows when (maybe next week?) because the Wii is at my house and I haven’t been there in days. Sigh. Well, at least my mother is getting better. And I’ll keep helping until she can manage on her own. I just hope it doesn’t take months.